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- Course
Most recently taught in Spring 2026.
Climate change represents one of the most significant challenges of our time, fundamentally driven by human activities and amplified by the rapid pace of industrialization and economic growth. At its core, climate change is as much a technological problem as it is an environmental one – enabled by outdated methods of energy production, inefficient resource management, and unsustainable infrastructure. At the same time, technology holds immense promise for solutions for mitigating emissions and adapting to the impacts of a warming planet.
American Innovation in Climate Tech is a spring semester elective course designed for Columbia Business School students to explore the cutting edge of innovation in climate technologies. It aims to provide students with exposure to a range of industries and companies at the forefront of innovation. We will explore the latest breakthroughs and emerging technologies for addressing climate impacts in energy generation, alternative fuels, grid modernization, mobility, decarbonized materials, agriculture, and carbon management. By analyzing recent advancements and engaging directly with industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and project developers, students will gain practical insights into how new technologies are developed, piloted, and commercialized.
This course aims to empower students to actively participate in shaping technological solutions that are not only innovative, but have potential for commercial success and impact on climate mitigation or adaptation. San Francisco and Houston were chosen as anchor destinations because they showcase two distinct but complementary models of climate innovation. San Francisco, driven by venture capital, startup culture, and ambitious state climate policy, and Houston, leveraging its energy expertise, industrial base, and deregulated market to scale technologies. Together, these two areas of the country provide students with a unique opportunity to examine how business innovation will shape the response to climate change. This course relies heavily on participation and students should be prepared both for in class discussion and to speak with industry professionals during the trip.
- Topics on: Business and Climate Change, Climate Tech, Technology
- Course
The goal of this course is to introduce fundamental principles of carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) that enable carbon management and are necessary for climate change mitigation. This is a survey-style class – different CCUS technology options will be introduced and their underlying fundamental scientific and engineering principles will be taught.
Real-world technologies in the carbon capture industry and examples of advanced scientific research in the field of CCUS will be discussed throughout the course. Course topics will include: point source carbon capture for power and industrial sources, carbon dioxide removal and direct air capture, electrochemical and thermochemical CO2 conversion, carbon mineralization and CO2 transport and storage.
- Topics on: Climate Policy, Climate Sustainability, Decarbonization
- Course
Most recently taught in Spring 2025
Climate change is causing preventable injuries, illnesses, and deaths, with each additional unit of warming projected to further increase morbidity and mortality from most climate-sensitive health outcomes without additional, timely, and effective investments in adaptation and rapid and sufficient reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Vulnerable populations and regions will be differentially affected, with the potential to increase poverty and inequities.
The effects of climate change are already harming health around the world, and impacts will only intensify in the coming years. Heat waves and extreme events are increasing in frequency and strength, and sea level poses an existential threat for many urban areas. A number of major health risks are plant related. These include food and water security, changes in plant based medicines, pesticide usage, and seasonal rhinitis.
Risks for some vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, are projected to increase with warming from 1.5°C to 2°C, including potential shifts in their geographic range and changes in their seasonal distribution.
Adaptation (adjustments in response to actual or expected climatic shifts) and mitigation (efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) are the primary policy responses to the health risks of climate change. Health adaptation can reduce the current and projected burdens of climate-sensitive health outcomes over the short term in many countries, mitigation in health practice and management is an additional possibility. However, under high emission scenarios, climate change will be rapid and extensive, leading to fundamental shifts in the burden of climate-sensitive health outcomes that will challenging for many countries to manage. Such challenges will be unprecedented, and there is a fundamental need for MPH candidates to communicate and address these risks in ways that are meaningful to a lay public.
- Topics on: Adaptation, Climate Policy, Sustainable Cities
- Course
Most recently taught in Fall 2025
Climate change is a threat multiplier. To eliminate inequities in climate risk, it is essential to understand the social, economic, and political factors and processes that contribute to uneven vulnerability and shape adaptive capacity in historically marginalized communities. This course explores these issues, framed by the concept of climate justice, to better explain how and why the situation is as it is presently. In this course, we will bring together interdisciplinary scholarship, social science data, commentary, case studies, policy innovations, advocacy, and practice to examine how climate change shapes society, how social systems influence our efforts to address climate change impacts, and how effectively proposed solutions respond to these impacts.
- Topics on: Climate Justice, Climate Policy
- Course
Most recently taught in Summer 2025
Disaster management is a continuum that is affected by decisions, investments and dynamics that occur before, during and after disasters. The issue of equity in disaster management is emerging from an abundance of evidence that shows that societal inequities often translate into inequitable outcomes and disproportionate impacts from disasters. Community engagement strategies are often touted as a solution to the inequities, but many aspects of community participation are complex, with additional effort and investments required for working with vulnerable and marginalized communities. Further, power dynamics between disaster experts and vulnerable communities may bias approaches to disaster management as well as representation within relevant power structures. This seminar is designed to provide an introduction to some of the variables that impact vulnerability and inequity in disaster management, ultimately leading to inequitable outcomes. It also provides an overview of current and emerging strategies in community engagement designed to foster a “whole of community” approach to disaster management.
This course is designed as an elective to the Climate and Society Master of Arts degree program. The purpose of this course is to prepare those entering the climate policy and practice workforce for addressing these challenges by providing an overview of issues of equity and building community partnerships in disaster management. At the end of this course learners will be able to:
- Describe social determinants of disaster vulnerability and resilience
- Describe how governance and financial structures can drive inequity in the disaster cycle
- Identify whole community approaches for disaster management
- Identify mechanisms to develop partnerships with underserved communities and emergent partners in disaster management
- Demonstrate the ability to develop strategies for disaster management based on best practices for community engagement and addressing equity concerns.
This course is open to graduate students in the Climate and Society MA program as well as others in sustainability management or related programs with an interest in disaster management in the face of climate change.
- Topics on: Climate Policy, Climate Resilence, Climate Science, Sustainable Cities
- Course
Most recently taught in Fall 2024
As climate related disasters continue to grow, the impacts of climate change and sustainable development on disaster threats and vulnerabilities are increasingly pronounced. Many of those in the field of disaster management are having to contend with increasing frequency and severity of disasters. Concurrently, disaster risk reduction and response frameworks are struggling to meet the challenge of 21st century disasters. At the same time, the field of disaster research is generating new insights into how the built environment, social structures, and ecological dynamics are intersecting to set the stage for disaster vulnerability, and thus can be better engineered for resilience. As this field continues to evolve, many who many not necessarily identify as disaster managers are also increasingly involved in disaster management in some capacity. With this, the dynamics of disaster risk reduction and disaster management are essential in working with communities and negotiating development activities in ways that are inclusive of a broad range of values, goals and incentive structures.
This course is designed as an elective to the Climate and Society Master of Arts degree program. The purpose of this course is to prepare those entering the climate policy and practice workforce for addressing these challenges by providing an overview of the field of disaster management within the context of climate change and climate driven disasters. At the end of this course learners will be able to:
- Describe how climate change is impacting hazards and vulnerabilities to disasters
- Describe how domestic and international frameworks are evolving in the context of climate chance and disasters
- Apply insights from social, physical and behavioral sciences to climate change related disaster management strategies
- Demonstrate the ability to negotiate complex disaster resilience issues across competing interests
- Articulate value propositions for disaster and climate change resilience efforts to multiple stakeholders
This course is open to graduate students in the Climate and Society MA programs as well as others in sustainability management or related programs with an interest in disaster management in the face of climate change.
- Topics on: Climate Resilence, Climate Science, Sustainable Cities
- Course
Most recently taught Spring 2025
Ensuring that food systems deliver food security and nutrition, fair livelihoods, and environmental sustainability is a grand challenge for governments and other food system actors, with many competing, contentious issues. Conflicts regarding land, technology, natural resources, subsidies, inequity, migration, and trade all play out in the food policy arena. Some argue that to effectively address all of the goals that food systems should achieve, they must be efficient, equitable, and sustainable. However, the political framing of how food systems are designed, function, and governed is determined by a complex set of networks of individuals and institutions with vested interests. This course is designed to introduce and guide students to:
- Investigate the equity and ethical issues of food systems in policy and practice.
- Deliberate critically about various conflicting views of who is vulnerable, marginalized, and disadvantaged across food systems, why, and the consequences of those inequities.
- Explore where there are inequities in accessing food and the implications of policies in achieving food security.
- Analyze the range of food policies and the political landscape of food in high-, middle-, and low-income countries that impact global food security, human nutrition, and broader aspects of health, food safety, economics, and the environment and climate.
- Debate who is responsible for ensuring food systems are equitable and through which policy instruments.
The course borrows tools from food systems, political science, practical ethics, political philosophy, and theories of justice to illuminate these issues that determine our common future and the way we personally and socially relate to the food we grow and eat.
- Topics on: Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Sustainable Food Systems
- Course
Most recently taught in Spring 2025
Food systems are a complex web of the activities and actors engaged in the production, processing, transport, retail, trade, consumption, and waste of food. Climate change and variability are and will continue to impact how food systems function, some due to the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as droughts, floods, cold spells, and other disrupting events. The way food systems are managed, in turn, instigates and perpetuates climate change and global environmental change. Increasing the resilience of food systems to a changing climate while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation is vital for human welfare.
This graduate-level course provides an overview of current and future anthropogenic climate change impacts on food systems and vice versa. The first few weeks of the course will ground students on concepts and dynamics of food systems and “systems thinking.” The next several weeks of classes will explore the relationship between climate change impacts across food systems and how the governance, management, and activities of food systems impact climate and environmental change. We will also explore mitigation and adaptation measures and solutions across food systems. In the last few classes, we will discuss the trade-offs in food systems transformations and possible pathways for the future. Throughout the course, we will undertake deep-dive case studies to provide local context to this complex relationship between climate change and food.
- Topics on: Climate Policy, Climate Sustainability, Sustainable Food Systems
- Course
Most recently taught in Spring 2025.
Climate change is the world’s most perfect public policy problem: it’s more global, more long-term, more uncertain, and more irreversible than most others. It stands alone in the combination of all four. That also turns it into the world’s most perfect global externality problem: the benefits of fossil-fuel use are internalized, the costs largely externalized. And while misguided market forces are the root cause of climate change, guiding them in the right direction is fundamental to the solution. In this course we explore the fast-changing global climate policy landscape shaping business. We explore the economic principles at work, analyze individual corporate and finance efforts to lead, dive into the regulatory environments around the world, and look to how the clean-energy race creates unique challenges and opportunities.
- Topics on: Climate Policy
- Course
Full syllabus to be posted soon!
Climate risk is real. It is costly to the economy, society, and the world, as evidenced by high and ever-increasing Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) estimates. Most businesses and corporations, meanwhile, experience climate risk mostly indirectly, via policy, technology, and market risks. This class focuses on climate risks head on, exploring to which extent they also pose direct financial risks to business now and in the near future. Along the way, we will answer a number of questions, such as: If climate change is so costly, why does it not show up (more) in asset prices? If climate pollution is so bad, why is polluting so profitable? We will also dive into questions around insurability of physical assets like real estate, stress testing of financial assets, and corporate scenario planning. Lastly, we will discuss risk as opportunity for those relatively better able to take advantage of risks and uncertainties.
- Topics on: Climate Resilence, Climate Science, Climate Tech
- Course
Most recently taught in Spring 2025.
Climate Tech refers to a broad range of technologies designed to mitigate the drivers and impacts of climate change. Development and commercialization of these technologies is essential if humanity is to maintain global prosperity while also avoiding catastrophic climate change. This immersion course provides students with the opportunity to work on a real-world technology to address climate change.
Students will be placed in teams of four, composed of two CBS students and two SEAS students. Student teams will be matched with venture capital funds actively financing climate tech that have identified an innovative technology for mitigating or adapting to climate change. Students will meet virtually with their assigned venture fund at the beginning of the course, during a mid-point check-in, and at the end of the course for the final presentation. The funds will provide guidance on technologies, sectors, and approaches most likely to receive early-stage investments.
Each team will be tasked with assessing their assigned technology on (i) technical viability, (ii) commercial opportunity, (iii) impact on mitigating or adapting to climate change, and (iv) target companies for potential investment. The course deliverables are a presentation to the course professors and classmates, a presentation to each team’s assigned investment fund, and a written report to the investment fund. Students are also required to complete a reflections assignment at the conclusion of the course. During weeks 4 – 11, when you’re working with the venture capital fund, you will spend up to nine hours every week doing independent research, collaborating with the fund, and completing assignments.
The purpose of this immersion course is for students to learn to work in teams across different skill sets and disciplines, combining expertise in business and engineering, with the objective of learning how to evaluate technology solutions to climate change. This course is designed to replicate the real-world experience in which collaborative teams use a multi-disciplinary approach to assess the opportunities, challenges, and impacts of new technology solutions to climate change.
- Topics on: Climate Tech
- Course
Most recently taught in Fall 2025.
Climate science informs us that global emissions of greenhouse gas emissions must be rapidly and dramatically reduced if humanity is to avoid catastrophic climate change. After three centuries of rising emissions, the entire global economy must now decarbonize in the coming three decades. Fortunately, most of the technologies and investment capital necessary to reduce and eventually eliminate emissions exist or are in development, but the urgency to implement those solutions is critical.
This course provides an overview of climate change, its effects on business, and how businesses can (and should) respond. The course covers emissions sources and their impact on climate change, followed by an exploration of the policy landscape, including current legislation, carbon markets, and climate justice. The course then evaluates current and evolving mitigation technologies, reviews the tools of climate finance, and considers strategies for reducing emissions to net zero. Finally, the course introduces the role of businesses in addressing climate change, including net-zero goals, actions they can take to mitigate their impact, and the perspectives of shareholders.
Throughout the course, the business case for climate action is emphasized, highlighting the economic benefits of taking action to address climate change.
NOTE: Business and Climate Change is a pre-requisite course for several other elective courses, including Climate Finance (B8363), Climate Policy (B8212), Climate Tech (B8320), and Climate Risk (B8233).
- Topics on: Business and Climate Change
- Course
Most recently taught in Fall 2025.
Climate change represents one of the most profound challenges—and opportunities—of our time. Meeting the global goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will require a fundamental transformation of the global economy and the mobilization of trillions of dollars in capital. This unprecedented transition is reshaping risk and return across financial markets and creating a new frontier for investment.
This course explores the role of finance in accelerating climate solutions and managing climate-related risks. Building on the foundational concepts introduced in Business and Climate Change (B8705), the course examines key financial instruments, institutions, and strategies used to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy. Topics include:
- Carbon Markets and Offsets: Understanding the mechanics, risks, and investment potential of carbon markets, emissions trading, and offsets.
- Project Finance: Structuring the financing of renewable energy projects.
- Development Finance: Understanding the unique challenges and solutions to financing infrastructure in developing economies.
- Venture Capital and Growth Equity: Exploring how venture capital and private equity support the development of breakthrough climate technologies or “climate tech”.
- Public Markets: Assessing investment approaches in public equities, including divestment, shareholder activism, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration.
- Debt Markets and Insurance: Investigating fixed income instruments, securitization, and the role of catastrophe bonds in climate risk management.
- Adaptation Finance: Overcoming the challenge of financing climate change adaptation projects.
- Financed Emissions: Evaluating how banks are aligning with net-zero commitments.
The course concludes with a discussion on career paths in climate finance and the evolving role of the financial sector in shaping a sustainable future.
- Topics on: Climate Finance
- Course
Most Asset Managers are evaluating how to incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance factors into their investment process. Applying ESG considerations raises the following questions:
How specifically is a company rated on ESG guidelines? Is there subjectivity in the process because of data limitations and assumptions made in data interpretation?
Does consideration of ESG factors improve investment performance?
For investors that emphasize ESG factors for non-financial reasons, how dothey measure the positive societal impact their portfolio is having?
Does an investor add more positive impact buying “good” companies, or focusingon “bad” companies and trying to change their behavior?
How does an Asset Manager use the power of the Proxy vote and CorporateEngagement to affect change in Environmental, Social and Governance policies?In this course we focus on how Asset Managers address these questions using a combination of lectures, case students and guest speakers. This course explores ESG issues faced by the Asset Manager. It does not address how a company manages its ESG risks and opportunities.The course has three main sections:
Building Blocks
Best Practices in Asset Management
Social Activism and the Future of ESG Investing
- Topics on: Climate Finance, Climate Investing, ESG
- Course
Corporate sustainability, or environmental governance by large private sector organizations, requires rethinking how firms operate in response to urgent climate and social challenges, and aligning business strategy with decarbonization, and balancing stakeholder expectations with long-term value creation. The rise in corporate sustainability presents the opportunity for firms to redefine their purpose, serving society rather than markets only. This course trains students to lead in corporate sustainability in terms of both the theory and applied practice, across several key areas: Energy efficiency, carbon target setting, decarbonizing energy consumption, stakeholder engagement and materiality assessment, financing sustainable goals, tracking and disclosing internal climate metrics, and calculating carbon footprint.
This includes setting carbon targets using the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) target setting tool; reading live building energy system analytics and understanding how inefficiencies are detected and remedied in real time; how to navigate different sources and forms of climate finance, including incentives, to defray the cost of achieving sustainability goals and environmental law compliance; using internal stakeholder engagement and materiality assessment from large firms to understand how effective stakeholder engagement and materially relevant impacts by firm operations are assessed; how tracking and disclosure of climate metrics to key repositories such as CDP is conducted to enable climate performance assessment; and how to calculate greenhouse gas emissions equivalences of large corporate activities and events. By integrating theory, data, and hands-on exercises, this course equips students with the skills needed to lead corporate sustainability efforts and meet the growing demand for climate accountability in business.
- Topics on: Corporate Sustainability Strategy
- Course
This course explores how strategic awareness and risk management influence the relationship between the business,
environment, and society. Students will learn to identify and manage risks associated with sustainability initiatives
through project-based learning. The course highlights the critical role of strategic planning and risk assessment in the
management of projects and their impact to business sustainability in a complex global landscape
- Topics on: Climate Sustainability, Corporate Sustainability Strategy, Decision, Risk, and Operations
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This course addresses America’s persistent, deep divides and the vitality that has allowed it over time to transcend those divides and reshape itself. E Pluribus Unum – Out of many, one – served as the country’s aspirational motto from its inception, yet we are a nation of differences. USA Lab aims to highlight the economic, cultural, social and geographic factors that define the American experience. In this hands-on lab you will contribute to community success through specific projects.
At the same time, your project work will animate the larger ideas we discuss in class, ideas that have informed and shaped this social experiment throughout its history: the idea of a community acting on a shared notion of the common good; the idea of individual liberty as an organizing and defining principle; and the idea that conflicting values can be reconciled. USA Lab projects enable you to anchor these ideas in American communities and see how they are reflected in the experience of people living and working in cities, towns and rural regions across the United States. Through the projects you also have the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives
- Topics on: Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Climate Sustainability, Corporate Sustainability Strategy
- Course
“This subject addresses the relationship between the legal system and the development and utilization of science and technology. It also explores the ways in which law, economics, and technological change shape public policy, and compares law and economics as alternative paradigms for encouraging sustainability, growth, and employment.
The subject examines some of the essential literature on the interface between technology and law, and it focuses on a series of specific topics in this area that have been (or are likely to be) both important and controversial. These include: environmental/public health risks generally; genetic engineering; telecommunications and the Internet; pharmaceuticals; nanotechnology; industrial automation; the impacts of intellectual property law on innovation and equity; the role of health, safety and environmental regulation and its effect on innovation; and the uses, limitations, and alternatives to cost-benefit analysis as a tool for guiding public policy.
- Topics on: Climate Finance, Climate Policy, Climate Tech, Renewable Energy
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Investigates sustainable development, taking a broad view to include not only a healthy economic base, but also a sound environment, stable and rewarding employment, adequate purchasing power and earning capacity, distributional equity, national self-reliance, and maintenance of cultural integrity.
Explores national, multinational, and international political and legal mechanisms to further sustainable development through transformation of the industrial state. Addresses the importance of technological innovation and the financial crisis of 2008 and the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and inflation, as well as governmental interventions to reduce inequality.
- Topics on: Behavioral Economics, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Climate Sustainability
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Analyzes federal and state regulation of air and water pollution, hazardous waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and production/use of toxic chemicals. Analyzes pollution/climate change as economic problems and failure of markets. Explores the role of science and economics in legal decisions.
Emphasizes use of legal mechanisms and alternative approaches (i.e., economic incentives, voluntary approaches) to control pollution and encourage chemical accident and pollution prevention. Focuses on major federal legislation, underlying administrative system, and common law in analyzing environmental policy, economic consequences, and role of the courts.
Discusses classical pollutants and toxic industrial chemicals, greenhouse gas emissions, community right-to-know, and environmental justice. Develops basic legal skills: how to read/understand cases, regulations, and statutes. Students taking graduate version explore the subject in greater depth.
- Topics on: Energy